What is Ventilation?

 What is Attic Ventilation? Why is it Important?

When it is time to replace your roof it is important to make sure the new roof will last. Ventilation is one of the most important things you can do, along with replacing the shingles, to protect your home.

Benefits of Ventilation

First, heat rising from your living area combined with the direct heat of the sun can wear on the shingles and cause them to lose granules, causing the roof to fail sooner. Ventilating your attic cools the house and the roof, helping the shingles last longer. 

Venting will also help with cooling costs by removing the hot air out of the attic, making the AC unit more efficient because it has less air that it needs to cool down.  

Venting also removes moisture from the attic. All the moisture in the air can cause mold growth in the attic, but venting the air out helps prevent moisture settling and keeps mold from growing. 

Lastly, Ventilation helps prevent ice dams from forming. Ice dams are caused by the heat in your house rising into the attic and warming the snow sitting on the roof. The snow then begins to melt and roll down the roof, but once the water reaches the edge of the roof, it refreezes because it is away from the heat. Then more water comes down after it and also freezes. The process repeats itself until you have a large build-up of ice sitting in your valleys and gutter. 

Venting the attic will remove that warm air out of the attic before it reaches the shingles. With less heat reaching the roof, less snow will melt and form less ice dams.

What are my venting options?

Have a ridge vent installed. A ridge vent is a great way to remove hot air from the attic. However, there needs to be a way for cooler air to enter. 

 To let cooler air in you need intake vents. A soffit vent is the most common way to let air in. If you do not have soffits, we can install a Smart Vent. A Smart Vent does the same job as a soffit vent, the only difference between the two is that Smart Vents are installed 6” above the gutters instead of in the overhang.

Lastly, we can also install a Vented Deck. This is a way of building a venting system on top of the existing roof deck. You can learn more about Vented Decks by watching this video which shows a vented deck installation in Old Saybrook or you can ask us when you get your FREE ESTIMATE.